


Tempest

by fachefaucheux



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Assassination Plot(s), Eventual Fluff, Gallows Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Murder, Mystery, Side Story, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-19 12:27:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8208023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fachefaucheux/pseuds/fachefaucheux
Summary: Yuri Petrov's life was pretty miserable. Then Keith Goodman saved it. Then it got worse.
Yuri is much more accustomed to being the one assassinating criminals rather than having criminals attempt to assassinate him. At least, not when he's being himself instead of Lunatic. But, for once, it's Yuri that someone wants dead rather than Lunatic. If he could have handled it all himself, he's convinced he would have been fine. But then Keith got involved, and got it into his head that he was meant to protect Yuri while bringing his potential murderer to justice. Now instead of just having to kill an assassin, he has to do it without letting Keith, or anyone one else, learn of his double life.
And that's just the beginning of it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not quite sure when this is set. Possibly post-canon. In any case, it's mostly wacky hijinks mixed with terrible awful things happening that aren't very related to the main plot of the series. It's also totally an excuse to make characters who barely interact in canon have to deal with one another. Any mistakes or mischaracterizations are apologized for in advance.

It was raining. Again.

Yuri didn’t have to be out in it to know it was a cold, heavy rain verging on a very wet snowfall—the weather had been the same for days, and he, quite frankly, was getting annoyed by it. Not only did it give him headaches and make the fire stir restlessly inside him, agitated by the chill and his cross mood, but the damp made his hair completely unmanageable. A petty, vain complaint, but it seemed to make the other two parts of it worse, somehow.

That afternoon’s case load hadn’t made his mood any better. Instead of considering _actual_ legal issues and making _meaningful_ judgments, he was trapped arbitrating matters of Heroic property damage for four hours. First there was Kaburagi and his ceaseless destruction of Sternbild’s infrastructure in the supposed “pursuit of justice”, that time accompanied by his (understandably) sullen partner Brooks, the both of whom were subjected to a lengthy lecture by the Public Works manager that they all could have done without. Then there was Goodman, who’d spent thirty minutes giving a rambling apology for having crashed into a communications tower. An apology that was rather unnecessary, considering the man could do no wrong in the opinion of the city’s higher-ups. Even if he’d taken out a whole building with his senseless careening around the skies late at night, he and his sponsors would still escape all liability regardless of the evidence. Yuri knew to pick his battles. Sky High was definitely not worth the trouble.

Not that it mattered, really. Any time a Hero was involved in things, it was all politics. Politics with him caught in the middle, him a respected jurist wasting his time in Hero small-claims court just because it made for good optics. Even Sternbild’s tireless _guardians of justice_ weren’t immune from judgment. His presence behind the bench made it look that way on TV, at least.

Yuri was well aware that he was letting himself get worked up over nothing. He blamed it on the cold.

The horrible, unbearable, ceaseless _cold_ , cold that he couldn’t even escape indoors due to whichever miserly CEO who was in charge of the general areas of the Justice Tower that week deciding it was fine to leave the heat on _just_ enough so that the pipes didn’t freeze. All the damn glass didn’t help. As he walked, as briskly as his accumulated fatigue allowed him to, down the hall to the main bank of elevators, Yuri looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows to his right. Though it was just after five, the city was already fully illuminated against the dreary weather. 

Just after five, and already the building was a ghost town. Civil servants wasted no time in bolting as soon as their eight hours were up. Not that Yuri blamed them. He would too, if he had anything to go home to. Despite being drafty, his office was much preferable to home and all the _things_ that waited for him there, Mother aside. All that was waiting for him in his office was paperwork and the space heater he kept under his desk.

Or perhaps the Tower wasn’t completely vacant after all—there was the shuffling of footsteps off to his left. Yuri glanced over toward the noise.

Glanced over just in time to catch sight of a dark figure wrapped in a long coat who hurled something at him, something that he avoided only by virtue of his finely-honed reflexes, something that hit the windows and shattered the glass. A gust of wind swept in through the hole, carrying sleet in with it. Yuri dropped his briefcase, mind spinning with options even as he raised his hands to summon his powers.

He was in public. No mask, no disguise, no weapons. It made him hesitate, just for a moment, before his powers engaged, wreathing his hands in blue flame.

But a moment was all it took for the figure to rush him, rush him with strength and speed that could have only come from a NEXT. Though he lashed out with his flames, they were entirely ineffective against his attacker—the fist that came down on him, in what felt like slow motion, was covered with something that repelled his powers entirely. Something that glinted in the dim light.

Then there was an interval of blackness. Then there was cold, and the sick sing of empty space beneath him, and a flash of gray sky.

Yuri’s last thought, as the blackness came over him again, was that being shoved out a window was a horribly stupid way for someone like him to die.

\- - -

Warmth.

There was a dull, oppressive pain in his head. But he was _warm_. Warm and dry and wrapped up snugly in something he couldn’t bear to open his eyes to. His head hurt too much for him to think very hard about what had happened, but it also wasn’t so cloudy that he couldn’t appreciate the uncharacteristically soft and safe-feeling position he’d found himself in, at least for a little while. Distantly, he heard muffled noises—clanking, footsteps, laughter, an animal yipping. He listened for a time. Once everything had gone quiet again, he finally forced himself into action. Sucking in a deep breath, Yuri opened his eyes.

The ceiling of the room was inoffensive. And it was dimly lit—whoever had moved him wherever he was had been considerate enough not to leave the dome light above him on. Above the bed he was in, he could only assume. Bracing himself for the inevitable pain that’d come with movement, he forced himself to sit up.

It wasn’t a particularly interesting bedroom. The furnishings were sparse and all of them were careworn, from the plush chair in the corner that was torn up all over its sides and arms, to the painted and re-painted dresser directly in front of the bed, to the quilt that had been tucked in around him. The light was coming from a lamp on the nightstand beside the bed. It was small. The shade had purple flowers on it. Looking at it made his eyes water.

He needed more clues. Yuri gave the room a second look, blinking his eyes until they cleared. There was a short bookcase beside the chair, overflowing with magazines, the ones that didn’t fit on the shelves arranged on top of it in precarious stacks. There were framed photographs on the dresser, but he couldn’t make out what they were of. There was a window to his right, the curtains and shades drawn. Also purple. There was a closet to his right, its door standing open. It looked like it’d been rifled through in a hurry. The clothes that hadn’t fallen off their hangers were very uniform—white shirts, jeans. Too generic for Yuri to make any sound deductions from. There was something lying on the end of the bed. He squinted at it. A first-aid kit.

Cringing, Yuri tugged aside the quilt and looked down.

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it still wasn’t good. His clothes had been changed. He was in someone else’s pajama bottoms and nothing else. They were blue and had clouds on them. His chest and arms were pockmarked with bandages, some big, some small. He prodded at one on his forearm. It didn’t hurt much, at least not in comparison to the pounding going on in his head.

He wasn’t dead. He was just in a stranger’s bed. In a stranger’s pajamas. Which, presumably, had been put on him by said stranger. Yuri didn’t remember putting them on, in any case. Gingerly, he swung his legs off the side of the bed. Stood up. Staggered to the door on the far side of the room, leaning hard on its frame as he pushed it open. 

A dog was sitting in the hall on the other side of it. A large dog. Golden retriever. It got to its feet as he stared down at it. It trotted off around the corner, out of sight.

“John?”

A bark.

“He’s awake?”

A yip. A chair being shoved back. Heavy footsteps. A head poked out from around the corner the dog had disappeared past.

“Oh, he is!”

It took a moment, but the man’s concerned face connected with a name, one that made the seriousness of the whole situation finally come crashing down on him. Yuri recoiled in horror, tripping over his own feet as he tried to retreat back into the bedroom. Unfortunately, when he hit the ground, he didn’t pass out again.

It was Keith Goodman.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuri and Keith have a chat. It goes about how you'd expect it would.

“Why am I here?”

It was the first sensible thing that had come to Yuri’s mind, once Goodman had finished fussing over him for the time being. He’d only been on the floor a few seconds before the man was kneeling beside him, spouting question after question that he gave him no time to answer—are you all right, where does it hurt, how can I help—questions which Yuri ignored. He couldn’t be hasty. It was a delicate situation. He needed to have all his faculties about himself if he was going to get out of it without raising any suspicions.

Goodman hadn’t seemed concerned by his lack of responses. Instead, he continued to talk at him as he went about taking care of him, in an embarrassingly personal way: pulling him back to his feet, half-carrying him off down the hall and into the apartment beyond, guiding him into the nearest chair, which was at a small circular table in a cramped kitchen. Then the hero was off again, though he never really stopped talking at him, returning with a robe that he tucked around his shoulders. 

Despite the fact that he’d been asking him questions continuously, Goodman looked surprised when Yuri finally cut in and answered him. He stared down at him with wide eyes and a puzzled expression for a time before responding. Clearing his throat, he circled around the table and sat down across from him. “Oh…do you remember anything at all, your honor?”

“Somewhat…” All he remembered, truly, was his struggle with the unidentifiable assassin and his fall from the Justice Tower. Whether it’d be wise to divulge that just yet, however, was another matter. “Tell me what happened.”

Dutifully and without hesitation, Goodman began to fill in the gaps, reciting events almost as if he was testifying rather than speaking with Yuri personally. “I was leaving the Justice Tower when I heard the window break above me. I saw you falling. So, I caught you, of course. I wanted to go after who did it, but I had a responsibility to make sure you were all right. I called the other heroes, and since Kotetsu and Barnaby were nearby, they came first. They told me they didn’t find anyone up near where you fell when I saw them again at the hospital.”

Yuri’s stomach lurched. “Hospital?”

“Yes, your honor. You weren’t responding. I tried to wake you up, but you didn’t. You needed a doctor. I took you to the hospital and was going to go back to the Tower to help when I ran into the others.” 

Slowly, Yuri formulated his next question. “If I was taken to the hospital…why am I here?”

Goodman was utterly transparent, as always. His absolute certainty began to falter, a troubled expression coming onto his face. “I was still going to go back to the Tower to help. But…once I got outside the hospital…I…found you in an alley nearby, your honor. No, that’s not right. You found me. You ran out of the alley yelling, but I couldn’t understand you at all. You…weren’t speaking anything I knew. You were still bleeding, too. From the glass, and from your head. But you were wearing the hospital gown. Ah.” He looked off to one side of him, embarrassed. 

Yuri frowned. “I was in an alley.”

Goodman nodded. “Yes. You came running out as I passed by. You started yelling and shaking me. I tried to talk to you, but you just kept shouting.”

“Hmm.”

Again, he looked hesitant, uncertain. “Yes, your honor. You did. You…looked very afraid. You looked worse when I tried to lead you back inside the hospital. But you didn’t look afraid when I led you away. If you were afraid, I thought you must be in danger. So I brought you here, home.” He laughed and rubbed sheepishly at the back of his head. “This place is very safe, since John and I are both here.”

“John?”

There was a wuffle from under the table. Yuri looked down and caught sight of a golden tail flapping just within his range of sight. “Oh. The dog.”

_Who gives their dog that kind of name?_

“John is the smartest dog there is! He’d never let anyone in if they were bad.”

That was hard to believe, all things considered. He doubted the dog shared his opinions on the ample legal precedent that supported the death penalty. Neither did Judge Yuri Petrov, officially, but it wasn’t usually him administering the punishment. Not exactly. “I see.”

An uncomfortable silence fell between them. Goodman was the one to break it, leaning across the table and speaking to him with unsettling earnestness. “ _Are_ you in danger, your honor?”

“Yes.” It wasn’t a lie. Someone _had_ tried to push him out a window. He could only assume the assassin would make another attempt, since Sky High had thwarted their first. 

Goodman lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Someone’s trying to kill you?”

“…yes.”

“Can you tell me who, your honor?”

“No.” Yuri sighed, shaking his head. “You can also stop calling me that.” It only made the situation more surreal, being talked at like he was in court while he was sitting at Keith Goodman’s kitchen table in (what he could only assume were) the hero’s pajamas.

“What? Oh…ah, yes, of course, um…Judge Petrov? Is that right?”

He didn’t really give his answer much consideration, waving Goodman off as he thought hard about how to get at the information he needed without revealing anything sensitive to the hero. “Yuri. And, no, I can’t tell you who. I don’t know who it is. It could be anyone.” Again, not a lie. It _could_ be anyone. In theory. Other than Sky High. Or Lunatic. But he was under no obligation to share that last point.

“Is that why you ran away from the hospital?”

“I don’t know.” Also true. He had no idea why he ran away, technically, though he could make a sound enough guess. Even the most rudimentary medical exam would reveal his NEXT capabilities. And though a certain NEXT power was not exclusive to one individual, it struck him as being rather suspicious that a person ostensibly deeply concerned with justice would have the same abilities as a certain other person deeply concerned enough with justice who happened to kill people in the just pursuit of it.

“Ah…”

“The head injury must have impacted my memory. And my behavior,” Yuri added. “I apologize for the difficulties.”

“Oh, no! No, it’s fine! I was worried, that’s all. You’re a very important person to all of us, your h…er…Yuri. Sternbild’s justice wouldn’t work without you.”

Yuri couldn’t keep himself from smiling at that. It encouraged Goodman rather than made him suspicious. The man probably assumed that he took the statement as a complement. He decided to run with it. “I appreciate that, Mr. Goodman. What did—”

“Keith.”

Yuri paused. “Keith?”

The King of Heroes flashed him one of his winning grins, the sort that drew both money and female fans like magic. “If I get to call you Yuri, don’t you think it’s only fair that you call me Keith?”

He had a point. “All right. Keith, then.”

The grin remained firmly affixed. Genuine. Yuri was uncomfortable being on the receiving end of it. “Thanks! And thanks again!”

Yuri sighed.

“It’s habit,” Goodman said, laughing. 

_Keith_ , Yuri scolded himself, silently. The man wanted him to call him Keith. It’d be easier if he adjusted his mental vocabulary to match. It made him peculiarly uncomfortable, just like the grin did. “Right. Then this is what happened: you took me to the hospital, you had me checked in—”

“Oh, yes! I forgot that part.”

“—but by the time you were leaving, I’d escaped. And I seemed frightened?”

“Yes. But, like I said, I couldn’t understand you. You actually knew what was going on, though, I think. When I got you here, you seemed less afraid. And I tried to convince you not to, but you pushed me away every time I tried to help with your injuries. You just, um. Went through my closet and took my clothes and collapsed on my bed.”

That was a relief. However embarrassing it was to have done what Keith said he had, it was infinitely better than being dressed by him. That was _mortifying_. “I apologize.”

“No, no. It’s fine. I would have gotten you something anyway. I hope you don’t mind that I tried to fix you up a bit.”

Yuri looked down at himself again, studying the bandages on his chest. It was neat work, almost professional. Keith _was_ a hero, he supposed. It made sense that he would be trained in basic first aid. “Not really, no.”

“Good! I was worried.”

Yuri considered his next move, not allowing himself to look up just yet. There was the risk that the constant grin would unduly influence him. He felt like it already had. Keith hadn’t asked for any explanation, and he had the feeling he wouldn’t protest his not giving one either, but he felt compelled to give some kind of answer nonetheless. “The head injury must have made me confused and made me revert back to Russian.”

“Russian?”

“My parents were refugees. From Muscovy.” It made him think, involuntarily, of Father yelling at Mother, loud enough to send her shrinking back against the living room wall— _you’re in the Union now, Olga! Speak English! I don’t want to think about that hellhole!_

“Really? I thought you just had an Imperial name, like Origami does.”

Yuri blurted out the first thought that came to him as he lifted his head, anything to change the subject. “Where are my clothes?”

Keith shrugged. “At the hospital still, I guess. I can go get them for you, if you’re all right here. I’ll leave John.” He paused, smile dying on his lips as he suddenly stared fixedly off at the space over his left shoulder rather than meeting his eyes. “I’ll get the rest of your things too. You must have left your phone too, right? And…um…your…makeup…”

Instantly, Yuri’s hand jerked up to touch the scar that covered half his face. It was only logical that it’d be exposed, a distant, rational part of his mind commented. He’d been in the rain. The heavy, pale make-up he used to hide the scar must have come off. Most of his mind, however, was flooded with memories of words, words that made the fire roll in his stomach: _you deserve that, you monster! How could you? Your own father? It wasn’t his fault! You were the one who should have died!_

“I’m sorry!” Keith said in a rush, reaching across the table but stopping short of actually touching him. “I just thought you wouldn’t want to have to go outside without it.”

“No,” Yuri whispered, out of a mouth that had suddenly gone dry and a throat that felt half closed. “It’s…fine.”

“It’s not! I—”

“It was a long time ago,” he snapped, cutting off his protests.

“I’m sorry,” Keith mumbled again, hunching in on himself, staring down at the table. It jolted him back to reality: the sight of someone who’d always appeared to him as a strong, almost inhumanly good, unflinching wall of ideals and foolhardy bravery shamed into curling in on himself like a kicked dog was startling. 

Yuri forced his hand away from his face. “There is no need to apologize. It’s…upsetting to look at, I realize. That’s why it’s kept covered.” 

That and because of the choking guilt that overwhelmed him every morning when he had to look at himself in the mirror to put the makeup on. 

Keith didn’t reply, though some of the tension left his shoulders.

“I appreciate your thinking to ask.”

He hazarded a look up at him, cringing at his expression. Or at the scar.

“As long as I don’t have to make any formal appearances without it, it’s fine.” There was a reason he put up with the long hair, after all. Always best to be thinking of contingencies. Explanations.

Excuses.

“Of course, I can take you right home. You must want to get back.”

It was the last thing he wanted, especially right then. “I’d rather think things through more first. The assassin will try again, I believe. Caution is warranted.”

“That’s a good idea,” Keith said, as he drew himself back up into his normal posture. “I haven’t told anyone where you are exactly yet. I called the Justice Bureau to tell them you’re safe, though. I said you just wanted to be cautious for a day or two. That’s what you would have done, right? If it isn’t I can call them back.”

It was almost exactly the course of action Yuri would have taken, aside from taking refuge in Keith’s apartment. All the resources spent on training the heroes was apparently money well spent. Or Keith wasn’t as airheaded as he seemed. Most likely the former. “No, thank you. That’s fine.”

“No problem! You can stay as long as you’d like. John will stay with you when I have to go out. Patrol, you know. It’d be nice for him, actually. Sometimes I wonder if he wants more company.”

His annoyance at the dog was a good distraction, pushing away some of the fear and the guilt and the anger that had flooded his mind. While he’d been distracted by Keith’s sudden mention of his scar, said dog had shifted around under the table and put what felt like his head on his feet. It was warm, but Yuri still didn’t like the thought of it. It felt like the dog was being patronizing toward him, as illogical as that sounded. It had to be because Keith kept referring to him as if he was a human. “I’m certain the situation can be resolved.”

One way or another. One way being with strategy and cunning, the other way being with bowgun bolts. If it was solely up to Lunatic, it’d be the bowgun.

“Yes! I’m sure it will be soon! Now, what would you like for breakfast?”

The abrupt change in topic knocked him fully out of his thoughts. “Breakfast?”

“Well, it’s actually afternoon, but since you just woke up…”

Yuri wasn’t hungry. But giving Keith something distracting to do couldn’t hurt. “Breakfast, then.”

Keith got up fast, banging his knees on the underside of the over-small table in his enthusiasm to get started. (And why was a hero, especially the _King_ of Heroes, living in a place like that, tiny and crowded and full of things that looked like they came from the discount section of a resale shop?) He winced, but was undeterred from his mission. The amount of cheer in his voice was exhausting to listen to. “Good! I have eggs! And more eggs! Mostly eggs. That’s what I have for breakfast, and there’s only John and I here, so…oh, and there’s toast too! Do you like toast?”

He sighed, closing his eyes as he nodded. “Yes. I like toast.”

“Great!”

Yuri was suddenly very aware of the magnitude of his headache. Keith’s rummaging around in the cupboards didn’t improve it. Nor did his continual talking, either at him or the dog, he couldn’t be completely sure.

It was going to be a long afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canonically speaking, it's unclear exactly what sort of...strange...pseudo-corporatist governmental system the T&B universe operates with. So, since I'm a nerd and I like that sort of thing and it makes for good plot, I've settled on it being a worldwide city-state system, with various groups of city-states being allied into larger groups for common defense. I'm also working off the assumption that Sternbild is a New York analogue, thus English is the common language. Non-canon political/world stuff that's been mentioned thus far is as follows:
> 
> "the Union" = the Union of North American City-States, which Sternbild is a part of. Contains city-states situated in most of real world Canada, US, Mexico, and Central America. So...NAFTA + CAFTA. In this canon, it really is mainly just a giant customs union, to be honest...uh, anyway.
> 
> "Muscovy" = a city-state that's a Moscow analogue. 
> 
> "Imperial/the Empire" = Empire of All Russia, which the Muscovite city-state is part of (and essentially dominates). This contains city-states in all the real world ex-Warsaw Pact countries, plus Finland, the Balkans, and Mongolia. So sort of like [The Empire of All Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_All_Russia), if only those pesky Ottomans and Habsburgs and Prussians hadn't been involved. The more you know!
> 
> Additionally, this assumes that Yuri's mother's name is Olga rather than "Origa", since...well, it really is the same thing, just spelled different. Hard to go from alphabet to alphabet, yeah?
> 
> You know, I thought I was going to write a nice fanfic with absolutely no geopolitics or Russians and it looks like I've done both with less than 5k actually written. Argh. I also assure you the chapters aren't going to all end up being short like this, that's just how things are working out atm.
> 
> Thanks for reading, everyone! (And thanks again?)


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuri and Keith have a conversation. 
> 
> More like Keith rambles at Yuri while Yuri sits there being an awkward/critical lump on the far end of Keith's couch.

“Petrov residence. May I ask who's calling?”

“Vera. It's me.”

“Oh, Yuri! It's terrible, I saw the news. Someone trying to kill you? I was so worried about you, what Olya would have done if you'd been hurt...oh, it does no good thinking about it, does it? But you _are_ all right, Yura, aren't you? Where are you?”

In Sky High's apartment. Staring at a carefully lined-up sequence of photos that marched across the wall on the far side of the undersized living room. Though he'd been looking at them for some time by then, his churning mind hadn't let him make any sense of them. “Somewhere secure,” Yuri finally said.

“Oh, good. Good.”

The question had already floated to the front of his mind — it always came up, whether he wanted to ask it or not. It was as involuntary as sleep or hunger and, likewise, could be postponed, but only indefinitely. Best to get it over with quickly so that he could stop thinking about it. “Is Mother all right?” 

Vera laughed. It was a tired, helpless sound. “Oh, yes. She’s having a hard afternoon, but we’ll make do.”

A certain image snuck into his mind, unbidden: Mother propped up in her wheelchair in the front parlor, a cigarette in one hand and the curtains in the other, fussing with them both, always, eternally, perpetually fussing, the late afternoon sunlight pouring in through the window giving everything a smoldering, red-gold luster: _why don’t you just get it over with? I know you hate me. Just finish me off like you did your father and let me go be with him. At least he loves me. Look, I’ll make it easy. I’ll even light the drapes for you, just stop looking at me like I did so —_

“Don’t worry about us, Yura. Keep yourself safe.”

Yuri sighed, shaking his head to clear it. “I’ll be fine.”

Another laugh, more genuine. “Oh, of course. What else would you say? Let me know when you’ll be coming home.” That time when she replied, her voice was steady and unconcerned, the furthest thing possible from helpless. Vera Ivanova was not the sort of woman who showed weakness lightly. And when she did, she was quick to recover. Yuri wondered what it was that had rattled her to begin with — it couldn’t just be him, it had to be something to with Mother. The thought made him want to go home even less than he already did. 

“Yes. I’ll call.”

“Are you sure you’ll be all right? If you need any help, I’ll call someone for you.” Vera’s voice had taken on that stern edge she used when his Mother wasn’t listening. Why was it directed toward him? He was taking the only logical course of action.

“No. As I said, I’m somewhere secure.”

“But you’ll call if you need anything, yes?”

“Yes.” Yuri paused, sneaking a glance at Keith. He was still preoccupied with his dog, not that he would have been able to follow the Russian conversation anyway if he’d been eavesdropping. As much as Yuri hated to admit it, he genuinely was in a safe place, somewhere leagues more secure than the house or the Justice Tower. It even had the added benefit of the King of Heros being entirely at his service. It was an unnerving thought. 

“All right. Don’t forget to eat, wherever you are. You know how you get.”

“I already have.”

“Good, good. I’m glad to hear that.Take care, Yura.”

“Yes, yes. I will.” Trying to hang up on Vera was like warding off the grandmother he’d never had, the sort who chased after you when you left your scarf in the hall or refused to let you leave the dinner table unless you’d had extra helpings. He didn’t know whether to be worried by it or annoyed. 

“John!”

Yuri looked down and over at the careworn couch that took up the whole of one of the living room’s walls, startled. Keith was coaxing the giant golden retriever off the half of the couch that, judging by the amount of hair on the cushions, was typically his. “We have a guest,” he hissed at the dog in a poor attempt at a whisper. With a heavy sigh, the dog heaved himself back onto the floor on top of Keith’s feet.

Clearing his throat to catch the hero’s attention, Yuri offered the mobile phone back to Keith. “Thank you. Everything is taken care of.”

Keith’s expression somehow grew a degree brighter as he took the phone back and pocketed it. “Oh! Great!”

Silence fell between them. Silence wasn’t the problem; it was the grin that unnerved him. That had been what had spurred Yuri into calling home in the first place — anything was better than standing there with Keith grinning at him, patiently, like he had all the time in the world for long pauses and stiff attempts at smalltalk. Keith was the one to break it that time, however, as he waved him over to the other side of the couch.

“Come sit down! Make yourself at home! I have a question to ask you anyway.”

Yuri froze. _A question?_

Keith patted the other side of the couch, his perpetual grin beseeching. Clenching his teeth, Yuri forced himself into motion. _He can’t know,_ he thought to himself. _If he was going to find out, he would have already._ Woodenly, Yuri sat down on the couch, his knees cracking — he’d forgotten how much shorter than him Keith was. Probably because he’d mostly experienced him through a TV producer’s lens, who benefitted from making the King of Heros larger than life. Yuri drew in a deep breath to steady himself before speaking. “A question for me?” 

“I don’t mean to be rude, but, I’ve always wondered…”

Keith couldn’t know. _Couldn’t._ People were idiots, most of them irrationally trusting idiots, Keith probably even moreso. “Yes?”

“It does sound pretty silly, now that I think about it…”

_He can’t know. He can’t know. If they never noticed the tie, then no one is ever going to notice anything. They’re idiots._ “It’s fine.”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s not important…”

_He can’t know. He can’t know. He absolutely cannot know even a stitch of it._ “Please. I doubt you’ll be able to offend me.”

“Well...hmm…”

Yuri clenched his fists on his knees. If the man wasn’t going to spit the damn question out, he was tempted to seize him by the shoulders and shake it out of him. “Please. Go. Ahead.”

A sudden change came over Keith’s face, but not the one he’d been expecting: he turned to look at Yuri with the sort of pure admiration usually only reserved for idols and religious figures. “Were you named after Yuri Gagarin?”

Yuri gaped at Keith, speechless.

“I...what?”

“Yuri Gagarin! The cosmonaut!”

_It really was a stupid question,_ Yuri thought to himself as the tension that had build up inside of him dissipated, leaving him a touch disoriented. “...no. No, I wasn’t.”

“Oh. That’s too bad. But still! It must be great sharing a name with him.”

Yuri couldn’t even form a mental picture of the man. If Keith hadn’t mentioned that he was a cosmonaut, he wouldn’t have been able to place the name at all. “I wasn’t aware you were interested in spacecraft.”

“I love it! I was even training to be an astronaut before I found out about my NEXT powers.”

“Ah. I see.” Yuri was genuinely surprised by this new bit of information. Perhaps it was because the media specifically tailored the heroes to seem like caricatures, one dimensional and timeless. He of all people should have known better than that.

“Being a hero is an honor, and it’s a great job, but I still think sometimes about what life would have been like if I’d been able to finish. I begged them to let me keep going, but my NEXT powers would have been too dangerous inside a space station.”

He found himself slipping instinctively into the role of the interrogator — lead the witness to the next point, suggest to them a fruitful topic to ramble on about, give them room to hang themselves.“That must have been disappointing.”

Keith gave a noncommittal shrug. “Everything worked out in the end! Poseidon Line probably wouldn’t have found me if I wasn’t already training in the Union Air force. You have to be a pilot before you can be an astronaut, usually. I just ended up going from pilot to hero instead. And aren’t astronauts just heroes in space? They were always heroes to me.” 

“That’s interesting.” Yuri was telling the truth — though he knew everything there was to know about the heroes that could have been incriminating or that was part of the history of their work for Sternbild, he didn’t really know anything positive about them or their lives. He didn’t waste his time reading the hero magazines.Mostly trash and propaganda. 

“Yuri Gagarin was my second biggest hero. My father was my biggest, of course.”

Instantly, Yuri tensed again. At least, he supposed, _his_ father hadn’t been Keith’s idol. Father was worshipped by everyone: all the heroes, all the citizens, by Mother. Thinking about it made him feel sick. If Keith noticed his reaction, he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he pointed out one of the framed photos on the other side of the room, continuing to enthuse on about his past. “That’s him, with me and mom. What a time! I can still remember taking that picture, everything felt so much bigger then…”

Yuri forced himself to refocus, scrutinizing the photograph’s details. It was almost too idyllic to be believable: a slight woman in a bright floral print dress, pressing up close against a broad shouldered, short man in an army pilot jumpsuit, each of them with one hand on the shoulders of the beaming white-blond haired child between them. The unrestrained grin was apparently genetic. A sliver monument in the center of a fountain loomed behind them: a group of three soldiers in the uniforms of three different decades with a jet fighter rising above them like it had just pulled up out of a dive. 

“I still go back to Sun City every summer to visit. And to take the picture, I’ve done that for twenty-four years in a row now. This year will make twenty five!”

That explained the rows of photographs. Yuri quickly make a survey of the changes in them over time. The father disappeared five photographs after the first; the mother appeared to age at an accelerated rate after that. Grief, most likely. Keith himself never changed, getting taller and wearing different uniforms but wearing the identical grin in every circumstance. The mother disappeared the year before Keith’s flight uniform was replaced by his hero suit. A year later, the dog appeared.

It all made more sense. He could have made hypotheses about the source of Keith’s oppressive cheer and compulsive honesty before, but any claim made without evidence was just speculation, a distraction clouding the truth. With the benefit of the added information arrayed on the wall before him, his analysis could be reasonably accurate. A supportive home during young childhood encouraged the development of his later traits, making the hero friendly and confident at his core. The father’s early death exaggerated his natural predisposition toward cheer, as the emphasis on personal responsibility cultivated by his upbringing in an environment focused on civic virtue would have most likely made him shoulder his mother’s happiness as his own personal duty. His honesty and adamant feelings reflected the same training; Keith’s protective upbringing under the hand of military authority made him take suggestions at face value rather than seeing any potential deceit behind them. He was accustomed to accepting orders on reflex. When the mother died, his sense of duty, central to his identity, had to be refocused. It transferred to the whole of Sternbild. The dog relieved unexpressed anxieties over the mother’s death. Dogs were loyal, instinctively friendly. Like Keith.

People were all so very simple. 

“Oh! It’s time for patrol!”

Yuri was knocked out of his thoughts by the sound of an alarm from Keith’s phone — the man used his sponsor company’s television jingle for it, even. Keith bolted to his feet, startling the dog, who’d been asleep against his shins. “I didn’t notice it’d gotten so late! All this excitement must have me off schedule.”

Yuri made no move to get up, though he considered it when the dog relocated to the spot on the couch Keith had just vacated. “You should leave, then. Don’t delay on my account.”

“Right, I forgot...hmm…” Keith peered down at him, face screwed up in thought. “You don’t mind being left alone? Really?”

“Not in the slightest,” Yuri replied. It would be a welcome respite from having to deal with Keith’s constant talking and distractions. There was no point to spending crucial time on pondering the man’s character while he still had his would-be assassin to think about. _There_ was a proper quandary.

“Do anything you’d like! There’s the TV, and books, and...well, there’s John? He shouldn’t have to go out. And you can eat anything you like, too. There’s curry! Mostly just curry, though. Do you like curry?”

Yuri disliked it, but had no intentions of eating anything anyway. “Yes. That’s fine.”

“Good!” The grin returned, redoubled and directed straight at him. It made Yuri feel exposed, somehow. Like being forced out into the sun without an umbrella. “Be sure to get more rest, too. I’ve always thought you look tired. Eight hours of sleep every night is best for feeling your best! Think of this as a vacation! Um. Well, a sort of vacation.”

“Yes. Right.”

“Even heroes need a break now and then.”

Was he implying that he was some manner of civic hero? Possibly, despite the ridiculousness of it, all things considered.

“Look! I finally got you to smile. You’re feeling better already!”

Puzzled, Yuri raised a hand to his face. Strange. He was smiling. Most likely at the irony of someone considering _him_ to be a hero. If Keith noticed his confusion, he didn’t comment — actually, he was already halfway to the door before Yuri could think of anything to say to the absurd claim that he must be feeling better. He snatched his coat off the hook on the back of the apartment’s door, and after a barrage of goodbyes and good lucks (whether they were meant for the dog, who had hopped off the couch and followed after his master, or for him, Yuri was unsure), Keith was gone.

It was odd. For some reason, the apartment felt empty without Keith’s exuberant presence. Which was understandable — he was in constant motion and constantly talking, either at the dog or at him or at no one in particular. Yuri suddenly felt a bit colder then, like someone had drawn the curtains on a window that had been pouring warmth and sunshine into an otherwise darkened room.

Strange. He had to be more ill than he thought he was. There was no other logical reason to explain why he should be getting the chills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! Brief world/timeframe notes.
> 
> Sternbild, in a way, is a permutation of our world. Some things get added, some things get dropped, some things stay the same. [Yuri Gagarin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin) is apparently eternal. Likewise, Sun City, which Keith mentions growing up at/near, is intended to be the Union of North American City-States's analogue of the USSR's [Star City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_City,_Russia), which was the training center for their cosmonauts. Incidentally, Star City as a place does actually also exist in the Sternbild-verse's Empire of All Russia. Remember that. :D
> 
> Also, strange but true: Keith is only 5'7" according to King of Works. (Which would make sense with his background, since astronauts generally had to be pretty tiny back in the day to fit in the glorified tin cans they used as spaceships.) Yuri, on the other hand, is 6'2". Lol.
> 
> Apologies for the long period without updating and the short chapter. Adventure still awaits you; don't give up hope yet! But thank you for your patience.


End file.
